The key difference is that the communist regimes never acted in the name of atheism. You are contradicting yourself here. Of course religion itself does not cause violence, but religion leads to fanaticism which cases violence. Never have there been serious crimes committed in the name of atheism the way there have been for religion. No one has ever blown themselves up or conquered nations in the name of nothing.

People do bad things because people are bad. Bottom line. Some people use religion to justify it, some people don't. Religion does not cause evil deeds. Evil people cause evil deeds and use religion as their "excuse."

JoS, I'm ignoring Thrawn's post because he's making blanket statements without any examples or proof to back them up. What am I supposed to say? "Sorry thrawn, you're wrong. I can't give you any reasons why you're wrong, because you didn't give me any reasons why you're right."

Now that I have more time, I'll humor vin and CarpKing, and go through each specific example of what they Bible "says."
Specific battle plan for the Israelites, as you already conceded. Yes it seems harsh, but God did not want his people being corrupted by polytheistic and basically barbaric cultures already there. And, if you think about it logically with the assumption that God created us, He has every right to decide when our lives should end.

The Bible doesn't specifically promote or condemn slavery. There is obviously slavery taking place in both the Old and New Testament, and mostly all the Bible says on it is to treat slaves humanely. So in that sense, I guess you could argue that the Bible supports slavery. It's important to note though that Biblical slavery is absolutely NOTHING like the African slavery we had in the US. Primarily, our understanding of slavery is condemned because of it's connection with racism, and because of it's cruelty. Biblical slavery, however, did not share these traits. It did not focus around race, and slaves were not treated cruelly (or at least the Bible says they shouldn't be). So in short, slavery is not a tenant of Christianity or of Judaism, but instead a fact of life in Biblical times, which is regulated by the Bible to ensure proper treatment of the slaves.
here's some more information:
http://www.bible-researcher.com/slavery.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_slavery

As I touched on above, this is about using physical discipline. This is not about taking out your anger on your kids or "beating them". It's about teaching them that their actions have consequences, and the most effective way of doing that is with pain. The modern day equivalent would be spanking your kids for getting into the cookie jar.

Kind of a biblical times welfare system. Sure we don't practice this now, but I don't see anything inherently wrong with it. Note also, that it says to "take her as wife" not just "bang her". The idea here is that the man is protecting and supporting his dead brother's wife by bringing her into the family, not that he is "banging her".

Context. This is not talking about having two wives. It's actually talking about having a female slave, and then getting married. Just because you get married, does not mean you no longer have responsibilities to care for your female slave. I'm going to call this a proponent of the times. Sounds weird to us, but for that era, this kind of stuff was common place.

*shrug*

http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/HistoryWorld/MiddleEastern/?view=usa&ci=9780199287376


I also gave a few very specific examples of Christian terrorism.

And here's Muslim apologism, virtually indistinguishable from your Christian apologism, except that it's Muslim:

http://www.cair.com/AmericanMuslims/AntiTerrorism/KoranaBookofPeaceNotWarScholarsSay.aspx

Sigh, I'll say it, religion is primitive, sorry, it really is, being open minded and speculating about beings of great power in the universe isn't at all, but performing antiquated rituals to worship mythical beings in ancient books is a laugh.

What do you think the authors of these myths would do if they saw how their story impacted the future? They would laugh at our stupidity. It's like if someone found JK Rowling's Harry Potter 2000 years from now and started to believe in magic.

Dumb. Every religion is corrupt. If you're religion isn't blowing up the nearest populated building so you can die for the Jihad, then you're religion is probably prowling for children to molest.

Morals can exist without religion, easily. Religion has no practical use anymore in human culture. If God does exist, he probably hates all the religions that worship him.

No they wouldn't. Religious writing is written to shape the world. Harry Potter was written to sell books.

Explain shape the world. Harry Potter and other fiction stories, generally are written in the quest format, which has the same archtypes of characters and basic plot of a character trying to complete a goal and gaining self discovery in the end. In the end the audience learns a life lesson. This is seen from The Simpsons to Avatar, to Harry Potter, to The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Aren't religion writings attempting the same thing? What can we learn from the Garden of Eden? In my opinion the moral of the story deals with both temptation and respecting another's home. The story is NOT about God's wraith and to obey his commands. God is a character, a plot device created to punish the characters Adam and Eve for violating this moral issue.

Maybe Harry Potter is Jesus.

No one has ever acted in the name of religion either. They act in the name of a religion An atheistic philosophy is analogous to a religion. Atheism is analogous to religion in general.

Religion doesn't lead to fanaticism. Ideologies lead to fanaticism. Weather or not those ideologies involve spiritual beings or hope for an egalitarian society is ultimately a side note.

A religious fanatic is a person who is a fanatic about a particular religious ideology.

An atheist fanatic is a person who is a fanatic about a particular atheistic ideology.



Non-religious morals are a completely different concept from religious morals. They don't even deserve to be the same word, really.

I do not believe that. When you are religious, you're expected, by your religion, to cover your ears and go "bla-bla-bla" when presented with scientific evidence. How is that analogous to not believing in any supernatural powers?



Any good act that a Christian has ever did in the "name of religion," a non-believing person could have done just as well out of simple human solidarity.

It doesn't take religion to make good people do good things. It does, however, take religion, to make good people do bad things.

I also think that it's rather sad that it encourages people to do good because of fear of divine punishment (or for the promise of cookies in heaven). It's even sadder that some people actually think that without the Bible or the Koran we'd just go around killing and raping each other and setting small furry animals on fire.

Saying we have "different morality" is like saying that the reason why Christians think it's "bad" to cheat on their wives is because it says so in the Bible. That's just demeaning.

I'd love to see your definition of moral (noun).

I'm not sure I believe this at all. I'm sure atheists who are (by consensus) good are just as capable, under circumstances that would lead the particular person into doing things that would clash with my personal moral code, to do such things.

Wait, you don't believe in the divinity of prophet Jesus Christ and / or prophet Muhammad?

DON'T YOU KNOW YOU ARE GOING TO HELL?

Except that this is going to be your choice, and you will be the one who will have to accept the responsibility. And not because God said it's OK to hate teh gey, or whatever.

I see that as purely subjective, dependent on whatever one chooses to attribute to someone's free will, or to overpowering external influence. It's true that belonging to a religious community may in extreme cases leave a person with very little in the way of choice due to peer pressure within that community, but to use crime as an example, there's also very little in the way of western-society laws treating religiousness as a mitigating factor (the only instance I can think of is when it involves some sort of cult-related mass psychosis tactic employed by the cult's figurehead). Whether someone thinks it's ok to hate homosexuals obviously varies, and no religious person and their opinions (or acts if they are to commit something condemnable) are beyond the scrutiny of others, which leads to that person being forced to accept responsibility whether they choose to do so or not.

I could also argue that religion is by no means the only possible negative influence to the choices that a person will make, which is exactly why I think you don't need to be religious to make decisions that affect other people in bad ways.

so much this.

It is those "atheists don't have morals" types of lines that make me wonder if the only thing that is stopping some of those fundies from committing horrible crimes is the fear of retribution from god, because that is the feeling I get when they say that.

Only religious people are capable of doing bad things, and those bad things that religious people do happen because they are religious? :downs:

Isn't any human capable of doing bad things?

No, that's not what I meant to say at all. Obviously anyone is capable of doing both good and evil...

But how many atheists do you know who've went out and blown up Christian churches just because they hate God? Maybe that's a little extreme an example, but it seems that's what's going on if we look at the Islamic fundamentalists towards the rest of the world (including other branches of their own religious movement).

I don't think all those people are just all naturally twisted. Or all those who protested in front of abortion clinics when abortion was finally available for women, or those who murdered the doctors (and that did happen) who performed them because they believed they were simply getting the world of those who were slaughtering children...

I refuse to believe that all of those people would have done exactly the same had they enough sense to think for themselves.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-april-22-2010/south-park-death-threats

For the eternal win.

(8:30 onwards)

Is there such a thing? I would take this in to consideration if I were you.

I would say it's reasonable to say that an atheist who leads a genocidal attempt to purge all theists from a population could be described as an atheist fanatic. Whether it be due to the fact that atheists are a relative minority or due to the fact that there's no real central organization binding all atheists together (except for the lack thereof a central organization binding them together...good Lord, atheism is a bit of a paradox), atheist fanatics seem to be few and far between.

Also, technically speaking, a fanatic who is an atheist is an atheist fanatic.

Jesus George Bush actually said that? (Referring to Mentats sig)
Isn't that wantonly and knowingly stating that you, as the president and representative of all Americans, don't feel you have to represent atheists. Doesn't that violate some law somewhere?

Bah, America.

I wouldn't call atheists a minority. Well, in the States, maybe.

People here are much less silly.

I'd like to see some numbers that indicate people there are any less "silly" than here.

P.S. I highly doubt you will find any support for your argument that atheists are not a minority.

Me too, and that's because he's probably wrong. On a global scale atheism is without doubt a minority, but furthermore, according to this graph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Europe_No_Belief.png it is also a minority in Koobie's country of residence, Hungary. The graph is based on polling with atheists answering "I don't believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force."

Practically speaking, I think I personally know more people from my country (Finland) that are atheists than those who aren't, but I don't have a hard time believing the graph, as religion still feels fairly prominent overall even though loads of people keep it to themselves.

http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_atheist.html

Alright, you have a point - only in some countries in Europe (Norway and Sweden, especially - who'd want to swap Thor for some wussy love-yer-neighbors-as-yerselves god?). Judging by that site, it seems to be 46% for Hungary, where I currently reside.

Thing is, though, in United States of America from the way I see it, people actually take this religious business rather seriously. Definitely not the case here.

And, yes, I do think it's silly to believe in a higher power that'll give you cookies when you die.

Also, about atheists being a minority - it seems that, sadly, I am indeed wrong. Statistically they seem to be very much so overall. The statement I've made previously was based on my experience of actually living here. Usually the only time / place I'm reminded of religion is when I log on to Massassi.

Well I do personally feel that atheism rising toward dominance over religion would be a favorable trend.

Practically, I'm down for that. I think it would solve many problems. However, I hope that doesn't mean I have to deal with more ******* atheists who "preach" their beliefs, or lack thereof. At least in my experience, atheists have been incredibly annoying compared to their extremely religious counterparts. Hell, they were even outnumbered probably 50:1 at my high school (private, only 200 kids), but boy they loved to get heard. I used to call the real big one "Reverend Rataan", and he would get extremely frustrated. Religious people call you misguided if you disagree with them, and will play the "but you can go to heaven" card. Atheists just seem to play the "ur a retard har" card

You guys are much more eloquent, so I don't mind you :). So here's a funny pic!

A few of those European countries would have far fewer religious people if they weren't being overrun by Muslims (e.g. France).

He did indeed make such a statement. However, it's not difficult to imagine considering the fact that there is rampant discrimination against agnostics/atheists in this country. Crazy, eh? Luckily none of it really holds up. Pete Stark (D) of California is the only person in congress to acknowledge his atheism.

Obviously they want to be heard when they are surrounded like that. I'm from a little small podunk town full of crazy radical christians. Hell, a neighbor down the street has 3 crosses on a hill in his backyard and used to hand out religious pamphlets instead of candy at holloween when i was little. On pro life day, an incredible amount of kids wear used to wear shirts advertising the day and their faith, whereas if someone wore a prochoice shirt they got in trouble for "instigating trouble". We aren't entitled to our opinion? You can share your views but we can't share ours? The school allowed bible study groups, what the hell is that bull****?

Atheist generally believe strongly in scientific evidence. They love to debate and argue. Christians don't, because no matter what anyone says they've locked the door to their mind and don't want to even listen to a new idea.

Wow. Isn't the US constitution supposed to separate the state from the church? I never realized that you actually had states like that where - BY LAW - you can't hold a government office if you don't believe in a god (some of the quotes listed there are more specific and actually tell you which god you're supposed to believe in, too).

OK, I didn't read all of it. There's a note saying the following:

"All laws against atheists holding office were ruled unconstitutional and unenforceable by the 1961 Supreme Court case Torcaso v. Watkins on a first amendment basis."

Which makes more sense.

It's also important to recognize the fact that many Republicans (aka Tea Baggers) don't believe that there should be a separation of church & state (Ron Paul, Sarah Palin, etc.). It's usually the same people that don't believe in evolution (Ron Paul, Sarah Palin, etc.). It's actually quite frightening how many Americans are against such a concept. You even have idiots like Glenn Beck that bring people like David Barton (a Christian Historical Revisionist) on to their show to spread lies & to attempt to rewrite history in the minds of the masses (e.g. making false claims that Thomas Jefferson was a Christian, not a Deist & pretending to have documents proving his case, which he refuses to submit to anyone qualified to validate his claims). I can't fathom why people get irritated when Atheists & other free-thinkers get up in arms about this type of stuff. Someone has to. Maybe we should just pretend that Evangelicals aren't attempting to rewrite history & usurp government.

On a different but still related note, was this the sequel to the 200th episode? I don't think my DVR picked it up, and I'm not sure why.

It's kind of inaccurate to lump these people together, and also to say that all these people do not think there should be a separation of church and state. From my understanding (well, of Ron Paul, not so much Sarah Palin, I don't know anything about her) the objection is to the complete severance of religion from the government, which I do not support. The point being that you can't have a government that operates independently of the religious views of those who run it any more than you can separate the religious views from the people themselves. Basically, banning religion from the government is just as bad as endorsing a specific religion. I completely agree with that. Maybe my understanding of their reasoning is incorrect; I definitely know a lot of people who really think it is or should be a christian government, but to me a government that obstructs religion is just as bad.

I think BobTheMasher brings up a good point. If we were to 100% completely separate church and state, that would mean, in my opinion, somehow eliminating any religious leanings or bias in the people that run our government.

Obviously congressman are influenced by their background, so should we effectively ban someone from government who is a Christian/Muslim/etc and has been brought up with Christian/Muslim/etc values that he still practices?

I don't think there can ever be REAL separation of church and state unless you made a requirement that if you want to be part of government you have to be an atheist :/. In which case it would be an ultimate form of discrimination based on religious values, which (in theory, and I say that because I know discrimination still happens) isn't American damnit!

I think that you guys are misunderstanding what's meant by separation of church & state.

Edit: BAH! I think I understand what you are getting at given the context of the discussion (which I"ll be honest I haven't been paying much attention). I think we were just making a point that a congress that was magically under the control of Atheists wouldn't be too different than the one that exists today. And we were somewhat using the definition as defined by the people we were discussing (Ron Paul, I believe), not so much the true definition.